How to Make Perfect Nutritional Yeast Popcorn

Nutritional yeast popcorn is nothing new, but it’s so hard to get the nooch to stick. Here’s my secret.

Do you love nutritional yeast popcorn but hate how you end up with lightly-coated popcorn at the top of the bowl and oily nooch at the bottom? It’s all about technique.

Let’s make some perfect popcorn!

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What the Heck is Nutritional Yeast?

Y’all, if you haven’t had savory, cheesy, addictive nutritional yeast popcorn yet, how are you living your life? Even if you’ve never heard of nutritional yeast (aka “nooch”) before, I encourage you to drop everything and get on this train.

It’s a delicious train.

Nutritional yeast doesn’t sound exciting, but it’s a pretty magical ingredient. It has a slightly cheesy flavor that’s great in vegan cheese sauces, sprinkled over rice or pasta, or in place of parmesan cheese in vegan pesto.

But my favorite thing to do with nooch is put copious amounts over freshly-popped popcorn.

Not only is nutritional yeast delicious, but it’s good for you, too. Two tablespoons of the stuff contains:

• 8 grams of protein
• 130% of your daily vitamin B12
• 4 grams of dietary fiber
• 640% of your thiamin
• 570% of your riboflavin
• 280% of your niacin
• 480% vitamin B6
• 60% of your folate

And, as Cadry explains, yes, it’s vegan, because “yeast is part of the fungus family, like mushrooms.”

How to Get Nutritional Yeast to Stick to Popcorn

An air popper is handy, but it’s not required to make this recipe. The trick to getting a good, even coverage of nooch on your popcorn is patience. You can pop your popcorn using whatever method you like.

You can even pop up bagged, microwaveable popcorn, just keep your eyes peeled for dairy ingredients on the label. Ideally, you want totally plain, unsalted popcorn as the base for this recipe.

These are two keys to getting that sweet, sweet nooch to stick to your popcorn:

1. melted vegan butter or oil (not optional — do not yell at me)
2. patience

Once you finish popping, transfer the plain popcorn to a bowl with high sides, then drizzle on about a third of your melted vegan butter or oil and shake on a third of the nooch. Then, toss the popcorn. A lot. Toss, toss, toss!

Repeat with another third of your fat and nooch, then with the final third. Make sure you toss aplenty between applications, and you’ll end up with perfectly-coated nutritional yeast popcorn every single time.

Nutritional Yeast Popcorn

Nutritional yeast popcorn is nothing new, but it's so hard to get the nooch to stick. Here's my secret.

Print Pin Rate

Course: Snack

Cuisine: Vegan

Keyword: nutritional yeast popcorn

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 7 minutes

Servings: 2

Calories: 150kcal

Author: Becky Striepe

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels – or a 2-serving pouch of microwave popcorn
• 3 tablespoons melted refined coconut oil – or vegan butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt – optional
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes – divided

Instructions

• Pop your popcorn using your preferred method, then transfer it to a large bowl with nice, high sides.
• Drizzle 1 tablespoon of your melted coconut oil onto the popcorn, stopping once in a while to give the bowl a toss. You want your popcorn coated really well with oil.
  
• Sprinkle on 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast plus the salt (if using), doing that same tossing thing.
  
• Repeat steps 2-3 (twice) with the remaining oil and nutritional yeast.
• Devour. Wish that your air popper didn’t limit you to popping 1/2 cup of kernels at once. Make more.
  

Nutrition

Calories: 150kcal

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